The Lion King: From B movie to masterpiece

The Lion King, but the film was initially unsure to be gone the Studio masterpieces DisneyDisney

By Jamie Portman

The Lion King did not know the people behind Disney's that they create a masterpiece back in the early 1990s.

Neither they expect that it's one of the most popular animated movies of all time. Even now, reminds 17 years later producer Don Hahn his surprise about what happened.

"It was as a B movie when we did it," he recalls. "People were, the other movies that we were in the Studio work stream." "This was seen as an experimental film and a type of L2-film."

With the Lion King back to the big screen Sept. 16 - in 3D, no less - and with his long-awaited Blu-ray, which in the beginning of October, it will be his reunion with old fans and also the search for new audience. Hahn is originally posted of the highest-grossing animated film of all time excited about this prospect for a legendary film by Disney, but he remembers anything it seemed a great gamble in 1994.

"To do a rock star [Elton John] the music was unconventional." To set a film in Africa without human characters. But then, I think we started, the three or four months before the film was released, it was a good movie, and we started to share that with the press, and they began to tell us, that it was a great movie.

"We have worked really hard, it, and we make something special and unique, take risks, and do, what we could try." It is always flattering and humbling, that people, it likes - but no, we have none of the coming see. "

But Hahn is quick to point out that the Lion King was and is a triumph of the hand-drawn animation, an art form, that some in the industry as obsolete, thanks to the computer revolution. Hahn wants to correct, any perception in the adventures of Simba and his friends were cast in any way in computer generated imagery.

The end result with Blu-ray editions and the film canvas rebirth in 3D is that protected the integrity of the original at any time.

In fact, together Hahn with directors Rob Minkoff and Roger Allers, to every single frame of film while to monitor conversion of 3D. He knows, there were complaints of purists, but he says that they should wait to see the movie.

"The most important thing for me was to include the original filmmakers." Hand-drawn animation is nothing. I think that it is something to celebrate. It is a beautiful art form, and we wanted to get it. "You crossed to make it one's mind to something, that would apply a CG [computer-generated] film never."

The Lion King Theatre is again two months after Disney's hand-drawn Winnie the animated all Pooh theater to the best reviews feature film premiered so far in this year. "That is something we really proud", says Hahn. "This is a great form of art, and there is no need to anything but festive in."

He like the King of the lions on the occasion of the return to the celebrate, as well, and is happy about how it looks in 3D. Finally, it serves the filmmakers to reach vision in animated form which could expect kind of epic sweep, you from a film by David Lean.

"We wanted part of the film Africa." "As in Lawrence of Arabia, the landscape was the star of this movie," says Hahn. This is another reason why the studios wanted to the Lion King back in theaters.

"The King of the lions on the big screen for 17 years have been," says Hahn. "There is a generation of children who have seen it in a theater, and now technology kind of brought us so we can a hand-drawn movie and it transforms into 3D and actually decent looking."

In addition the film on home entertainment for almost eight years was not, so the Studio bring the opportunity it has taken for the first time on Blu-ray.

"Very much in the tradition of which is Walt Disney used to do with his films," stresses Hahn. "Every seven years, would come to snow white, or Fantasia would come out, a new audience." That is, what drives this: a new audience and again put this film in the best possible way. "

Robert Neuman, 3D Stereographer conversion process, saying that he has a daughter, probably 100 times has seen the Lion King. "Now, to see the film again allow this you fired but with new eyes."

It took Neuman and his team of four months to complete the conversion. Neuman checks 1,197 individual scenes and creates a "3D script" for the whole movie. This has been done, to the depth of each 3D effects of the map, to feel each scene to improve.

The use of technology to "Depth in a scene to forms", made Neuman constantly decisions, how much was appropriate. He says 3D always intelligent - use extreme on the audience can wear.

"A deep notch of 10 is the maximum depth that I can give to meet comfort," he says. "You must be a balancing act between immerse themselves and to achieve comfort." It's like marathon running. Would you run with the same speed, you would never make it to the finish line. Marathon runner there by modulation their speed. "It's the same when shadowing to what happens in the film emotionally."

The top priority for Neuman was the glory of the traditional hand-drawn animation to honor.

"The beauty, that is, what audience to react when they animated the great classical functions can be found under." But if you this traditional animation and it into a stereoscopic space was stuck, it suddenly takes on this new life. It has the character of the original King of the Lions, but now it has this tangible quality. It feels like a completely new thing. "And it feels not like [computer generated imagery]."